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Sun-Times: Cook County is now the county with most COVID-19 cases in U.S.

Cook County has surpassed Queens County in New York as the U.S. county with the most coronavirus cases, based on an Sun-Times analysis of the latest public data.

There have been 58,457 total cases of COVID-19 recorded in Cook County, which includes all of Chicago and many of its suburbs, after officials added 2,051 new cases in the last 24 hours. Queens, by comparison, added only 336 cases over the same time frame to bring its total to 58,084.

Cook County still has a lower rate of COVID-19 per capita given that its population (5.1 million) is more than twice as large as Queens (2.25 million). But Queens also has a much higher population density with 20,500 people per square mile compared to 5,500 per square mile in Cook County, which can make social distancing measures more challenging to maintain.

In addition to Queens, six other New York counties have been among the top 10 nationwide for coronavirus case totals, while the next highest Illinois county - Lake - was No. 49 in the nation as of Wednesday with 5,662 cases.

• This report was produced in partnership with the Chicago Sun-Times. See more at chicago.suntimes.com.

May 15 COVID-19 cases per county; search by ZIP code

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